
New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 195 
‘This apparatus consists of four vertical glass tubes, five feet in 
length and about one and five-eighths inches inside diameter, sup- 
ported in a vertical position, with their lower ends covered with 
fine brass wire cloth, and connected with a pan, in which water is 
kept at a very nearly constant depth by ‘means of an inverted 
supply bottle. One of these tubes was filled with muck, a second 
with garden soil, a third with sand and the fourth with clay, all 
of the soils being air-dry, and sifted through a sieve of 100 meshes 
to the inch. 
This experiment was started May 5, 1887, and has been since 
continued. The rise of the water by capillary attraction as deter- 
mined by the change in color of the soil, was measured daily 
during the first eight months. After this, as the rate became 
very slow, the measurements were made less frequently. In our 
last report the rise of water in the different tubes is given from 
May 5 to November 17, 1887. 
During the past year the water has continued to advance slowly 
in all of the tubes, and in the one containing the garden soil, the 
water had risen to the top of the column by August 15. It 
is interesting to notice, however, that the comparative rate of 
progress in the muck and garden soil was reversed during the last 
few months. Thus the water rose in the garden soil only 52 
inches from November 17, 1887, to August 15,1888, while in the 
muck it rose 102 inches in the same time. The height to which 
the water had risen in the different tubes on November 17, 1887, 
and on August 15 and November 17, 1888, was as follows: 


INGOs | No. 4, 












TuBE No. 1, INO? 2. 
UCK. GARDEN SoIn.| SAND. CLAY. 
= f a se oO cet a GH 
lhl SE-B ak alae a ae Sake a 
fe “a a ui ra ra a8 Pa 
of ss of Bs of Os on Of 8 | of 
oe = OF 5 oF S oe si 
sn an 4 a Ay ae Ay 
Inch. | Inch. | Inch. | Inch. | Inch. | Inch. | Inch. | Inch. 
INOVOUIDOE 1 Ts i SS7 acscmeeese. PEAR | whee 48 pa PE Ne ips A 34 : 
PATIO TIGL LORS. «sell crcaies cere 33% 1054 5334 534 24 43% 35 1 
November 17, 1888........... 36% BA NEN ei nt Mig te 2432 4% 3534 38 




At the time this experiment was started, it was thought that it 
would give some indication of the power of the different soils, in 
their natural condition, to transmit water by capillary attraction. 
